GoofyMom's Even Greater American Road Trip - 2008 - Updated 11/14 - Page 18 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Hey Donna! Haven't had a lot of time to spend on the boards lately but I'm so glad I came across your trip report! Boy did I have a flash back to '05 when I saw Dan in his Fred Flintstone shirt! Good times! We were in Epcot very briefly that Friday night (26th). It was our last night and we were all tired and it was SO CROWDED when we got there! We didn't even get a chance to try any food booths cause the lines were so long. Did manage a rainbow margarita in Mexico though! By 7:30 we were done and ready to crash for the evening so we left the park. Sorry I missed you guys! Looking forward to more!
So that you got two of the special pins. Can you include a picture of them so we can see???
Sure, Barb. I already have them locked on my 2nd special Tinkerbell pin lanyard (yep I have one lanyard exclusively for Tinkerbell and I'm working on a 2nd one ). I don't have the little card that came with them anymore because I thought "what am I ever going to do with this little card?" Who knew I'd be wishing now that I kept it....
Anyway, they come sealed in a little bit of plastic and they're on a card that says something along the lines of the Cast Member wants you to have some pixie dust and that you are not supposed to trade it. Of course, we saw lots and lots of them on CM lanyards throughout our trip, so some people just don't realize how special it is to receive one and trade them away because they got them for free.
Those are great pins! Leaving WDW is never easy, but at least this made it a little better. Congrats on the upgrade to the annual pass, that is awesome!!! Looking forward to the next leg of your trip...
__________________
Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
Ok, back on the road! We headed off Disney property and took I-4 until we got to I-95. That’s when I truly felt we were on our way, finished with our Florida adventure and moving onto the next leg of our road trip. We got to Ormond Beach around 12:15 and we decided to stop for a quick lunch. We saw a sign for a Cracker Barrel and pulled in there. It really was quick and we were back in the van before 1:00!
I got a lot of pictures like this one, where I have no idea where they were taken other than we were still in Florida. I'm thinking it's Jacksonville. I guess I need to take better notes!!
We crossed into Georgia at 2:30
We’d been hearing of the gas shortage and were pretty concerned that we might not be able to find gas when we needed it, but when we stopped at the Georgia Welcome Centre, there was a sign on the counter that said gas was available all up I-95. That was a relief!
We ran into some heavy rain just before Savannah and it dropped 17 degrees in about 15 miles! Then when we crossed into SC a few miles later, it jumped 10 degrees as soon as it stopped raining. Wild!
We thought the gates into SC were pretty cool.
But they had the standard sign too:
So, you all remember Bob, right?
Bob in the rain
We played what I call Leapfrog with this SUV – we would pass them, then they would pass us, and then we would pass them, and so on… Anyway, we noticed that we weren’t the only ones with a dashboard buddy!
It rained off and on and the clouds looked really cool. So I took a picture.
Of course we started seeing South of the Border signs. I tried to get pictures of them, but they were really hard because they would come up on you so fast, hidden in small clearings in the trees. Oh well, it gave me something to do while we were driving.
I-95 is pretty boring actually. There was a whole lot of this:
The occasional this:
And it was like hitting paydirt when I managed to get a non-blurry shot of the SotB signs:
Of course, I always got the pictures of the dumb ones. I liked the one that said “Pedro’s Fireworks. Does yours?” but I didn’t get a photo of it.
We stopped for gas at 5:40 in Santee, SC. We decided that we were about done with driving. We’d only been on the road for about 7 hours, but we were tired.
We’re NASCAR fans – so we had to take a picture showing how close we were to Darlington (we hadn't switched the GPS to Eastern time so that's why it shows 5:42 instead of 6:42, in case anybody noticed that )
We got to Florence, SC around 6:30 and found a Comfort Inn just off the interstate. We checked in there, and asked the desk clerk for a recommendation for dinner. He told us to just go across the street and eat at Fatz. I’m so glad we listened to him, because that was one of the best restaurants we’d eaten in on the whole trip. And we ate in some really good restaurants on this trip. After dinner, we went back to our room and fired up our laptops because we hadn’t been online while we were in WDW. We let people know where we were and that we were ok, and then it was time to go to sleep because we knew we were in for a long day tomorrow!
The weather today was... rainy off and on The best thing today was.. the pin trading in AK The worst thing today was... having to sit in the van all day - we had to stop every couple of hours so I could get out and move around a bit to get comfy again The funniest thing today was... at AK I sat down and got a wet bum because it had been raining there too Today we tried... eating at Fatz Cafe on the hotel clerk's recommendation And the result was... I wish we had one of these in Winnipeg! Yummy! The most magical moment today was... getting the Pixie Dust pin as we left AK - not just because of the pin, but because of the way it was presented to me too.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.